Amitav Ghosh and the forgotten army

Abstract

"Late in 2000 Amitav Ghosh withdrew The Glass Palace from being considered for the Commonwealth prize, as he regards the notion of the Commonwealth to be a misnomer and anachronistic. His reason for doing this was laudable. However, one has to be concerned with the new Indian identity that he envisaged in that novel. The exploration of the forces that shape identity, especially national identity, has long been a pre-occupation of writers, and Indian writers in particular. At the beginning of this new century, as India sought to re-define itself, Indian thinkers were re-examining their past to help explain their present identity. While the interpretation of history can be as selective as it is subjective, there is a disturbing element in the most recent trend to rewrite the past, which is helping shape a militant identity for a nation that had learnt to become proud of quite the opposite national characteristics. While the intention of those who offer these new perspectives may not be consciously to encourage and spur on India's race to become a nuclear power and a more aggressive force in its region, that is precisely the effect of this new historical reconstruction. Proponents of this new historical reconstruction are led by Peter Ward Fay, who published The Forgotten Army in 1991. Shortly afterwards, Granada television produced a documentary of the same name. Both the book and the documentary are a response to the notion, as fantastic as it is absurd, that India did not winits freedom; it was given it because the British finally chose to "transfer power." This idea had its origins in India: The Transfer of Power, edited by Nicholas Mansergh. Peter Ward Fay, the producers of the documentary, and now Ghosh argue that this was not so, and that India did fight for its freedom. They trace the history of the Indian National Army (INA), citing it as one of the major reasons why the British were finally forced to leave India.